Jazz Beyond Jazz

Howard Mandel's Urban Improvisation

Archives for 2008

Benefits of aficionado-programmed fests

The best thing about the Chicago Jazz Festival is that it’s curated by an independent committee of people (mostly from the Jazz Institute of Chicago) who really love music, rather than being overly influenced by promoters, booking agents and managers representing a few big name artists who are trying to fill blank dates during their big tours. 

Singer Dee Dee Bridgewater’s  first-time ever tribute to the late Betty Carter, her mentor, electrified the crowd at Grant Park Friday night — after drummer Thurman Barker led a brilliant set by stalwarts from Chicago’s avant garde-leaning Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), and trombonist Julian Priester soloed throughout original repertoire written by local trombonist T.S. Galloway in honor of the fabled Du Sable High School band director Capt. Walter Dyett. This is not a schedule that could have been imagined by anyone but Chicagoans intimately aware of the Chicago Jazz Fest’s 30-year history. 

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Sonny Rollins in Chicago

Sonny Rollins at 78 is still a saxophone collosus, as he demonstrated leading his touring sextet Thursday night to open the Chicago Jazz Festival. His bent posture, shock of white hair and strong features give him the air of an Old Testament prophet, and his stamina may not be all it was when he was younger, but he brought wisdom, humor and intensity to an upbeat and swinging rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Falling In Love Is Wonderful,” sweet warmth  to Ellington’s “In A Sentimental Mood” (backed only by his rhythm section), and for a finale uproarious energy to a bare-bones Chicago blues. Read Neil Tesser’s article in the Chicago Reader for background on how Rollins cleaned up his act in Chicago, circa 1955, which accounts for his affection for the city to this day. 

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Chicago jazz fest in neighborhood clubs

A city’s jazz scene is best measured not by an annual festival — though Sonny Rollins free at the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavillion in Chicago’s Millennium Park on Thursday night was a fine thing. The real signs of Chicago’s jazz depth and diversity are evident in the unique “club tour” (aka pub crawl), which the Jazz Institute of Chicago cleverly designs to introduce listeners to local musicians playing small venues way outside the downtown Loop.

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World Music redefined by blogs

World Music, a phrase that literally should include all cultures’ sounds but as a genre has become narrowed, softened and commercialized, is being re-invigorated by a new cadre of bloggers with interests in adventure and discovery as well as analytic study, according to Ross Simoninini in the Village Voice Aug 20 – 26 issue. At last, it’s easy to reach beyond those pleasant Putumayo greatest hist packages (“guaranteed to make you feel good”) for fuller access to what’s played and heard all over the globe.

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Jazz fests of August

Free jazz fests across the U.S. mark summer’s glorious end. Manhattan’s Charlie Parker festival (held Saturday Aug. 23 and Sunday 24 in Marcus Garvey park uptown and Tompkins Square Park downtown), the Chicago Jazz Festival (which formally starts Thursday Aug 28 with Sonny Rollins at downtown Grant Park’s Petrillo bandshell) and the Detroit International Jazz Festival (celebrating Detroit-Philadelphia music connections, Aug 29 – Sept. 1 on multiple stages along the river at Hart Plaza and down the street at Campus Martius Park) and smaller events such as the Fox Jazz Festival in Menasha, Wisconsin have become traditions. 

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Pandora radio on deathbed?

The wonderful web radio giant Pandora.com — and lesser web radio sites, too — are reportedly about to be done in by per-song performance royalty rates doubled last year by a federal panel. Pandora’s founder says he’ll have to shut it down soon if the terms can’t be changed. Read the whole story in the Washington Post, and wonder who has it in for the free dissemination of music that we don’t know but might like anyway.  

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Sony owns America’s music

What’s it mean that the back catalogs of record companies documenting 100 years of American music are now wholly owned by the Japanese Sony Corporation, which has bought out Bertelsmann, its German partner in the four-year-old behemoth music corporation Sony BMG?

 

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Giants on earth

Johnny Griffin, tenor saxophonist, b. Chicago 4-24-28, d. at his home in the French countryside,  7–27-08 — such bare facts don’t say much about the music this man could wring from his instrument, back when jazz giants entertained the earth. From his pro emergence at age 15 in 1945 well past the mid ’60s, when Griffin relocated to Europe due to tensions in the U.S. and civilization abroad — he stood fast and tall for vigor and rigor, sophisticated lyricism and humor, impassioned drive, true blue grit, the spirit of collaborataion  — attributes audiences shouldn’t take for granted.

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Odd noise music alert, Brooklyn

A concert sponsored by The Onion — so expect to be amused, Wednesday July 30, starting at 6:30 pm, free in a tent by the Brooklyn waterfront: 

  • John Zorn’s “Cobra” — an intricate musical game performed best by quick-witted improvisers with a handle of tactics governing the Avalon Hill board wargames of the ’60s — is being performed by an internation cast of a dozen such specialists (Zorn will be prompter, something between a card dealer and referee) – 
  • Followed by The Theremin Society, three specialists in the no-touch sound controller invented in the 1920s and used ever since mostly for eerie soundtrack effects – 
  • Finally Jonathan Kane, here being promoted as a bluesman with his band February, but I remember a performance piece in which he tap danced amplified big beats, and the hype is he’s also a montrous loud punk/minimalist drummer.

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Hear here! BBC jazz awards show online ’til July 30

P.S. to yesterday’s musings re the BBC Jazz Awards: the Guardian’s blog posting on the Awards show (which featured performances by Return to Forever, Tommy Smith, singer Ian Shaw and Jeff Beck with Jamie Cullum and Kyle Eastwoood jamming on “Let The Good Times Roll”, plus presentations by Sir George Martin, among others) mentions that this event can be heard (free, online) through midnight Wednesday, July 30. 

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BBC honors Return to Forever and UK homies

An international wrinkle on jazz awards: The British Broadcasting Company on Monday night announced 11 winners of the BBC Jazz Awards, Reunited fusion quartet Return to Forever won for “lifetime achievement,” bassist Charlie Haden received the “international award,” Sir John Dankworth and Dame Cleo Laine were given the “gold award.” But who are these other honorees with little reputation in the States. Are they better known throughout Europe? What are we missing?

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iPhone + Pandora = open sesame


According to Slate
(formerly, Salon’s) tech writer Farhad Manjoo, reviewing the
iPhone makeover and cool third-party programs that optomize its
potential, the expense and hassle of securing the new device is worthwhile
if only for mobile access to Pandora.com.   The personally-programmed radio site has captivated me, too
— Pandora’s Music Genome Project reliably
streams known and unknown music I like — jazz-beyond-jazz — on my B **tches Brew “station”
in surprising juxtapositions and successions.
Virtually free, nearly boundless music exploration at one’s fingertips!

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